Tangerine!

Tangerine is a nice application that will analyze your iTunes music library and set the BPM and "Beat Intensity" of all your tracks. When I previously tried to use the application it was limited to non DRM'd music (MP3. AAC) so I didn;t have much use for it since a growing proportion of my music is from the Apple iTunes Store. The latest version will analyze your DRM'd tracks. So I decided to try it out.

The main reason for trying it out was because I'm not quite happy with the "shuffle" or "Party Shuffle" feature on iTunes. basically it plays whatever it determines without much of a point to it. If you have a wide taste in music and much of it "highly rated" then your playlists tend to all look and sound the same, especially if they are made when you're in a particular mood or have totally forgotten about tracks you've had for ever.

Tangerine fixes this problem for me. Once the tracks are analyzed you can have tangerine create playlists that have tracks that contain music that lies within both a selected BPM range but also a set beat intensity range. In addition, and this is the part I like, you can set a general pattern. I have taken a liking to the "twin peaks" setting, In effect it will create a playlist that increases in beat intensity and BPM and then slows the music down and then brings it back up again, kind of like old school R&B radio stations.

The last list it generated for me had an Oscar Peterson Piano solo that was followed by the instrumental version of Billie Jean. Completelt unexpected, something I would never create in a playlist, but for some odd reason worked for me. The software will show you the playlist it creates in a lower pane which indicated the "pace" of the music by increasing or decreasing the size of the album art associated with the tracks. So far I've generated about 6 playlists that I like out of 10 tries. I generally don't keep the playlists around unless it is really outstanding though.

Tangerine gets a thumbs up from me. There is a demo available. Try it out.